Zipper Challenge

I have taken two sewing classes in my life.  The first one I believe was in about 2nd or 3rd grade and I made this pumpkin pin cushion along with a Santa doll and something else I can't recollect at the moment.  Perhaps mother Karen can fill in that blank?

I was so excited about this pin cushion I had my parents get me the materials so I could make more of them.   But, sadly, doing them on my own without the guidance of a professional didn't turn out so well for me.

You can clearly see which one gets more love.  I altered no pins before snapping those pictures!

Second class was in high school and I made an atrocious dress that I think I finally got rid of a few years ago.  Or it could just be lurking in the attic somewhere at my parents.

So really, I'm not that great of a sewer.  I just fake it.  All those Pug Crawl costumes I made for Kristen's pug,  Reggie?  Totally faked.  If you look close up you would be horrified.  But from far away they pass.  And so that is why I keep sewing.  I just hope no one takes a closer look.  If you've never seen these costumes of which I speak, I promise I will have another post when it gets closer to this year's event.

So with that in mind, I'll show you my latest sewing project in which I actually included a zipper.  No it's not a pretty zipper, but remember that whole "far away" thing.

First thing I did was find a good tutorial online to help guide me through this process.  A quick google search pulled up a post by Design Sponge from a few years back.  Looked easy enough so I dove in.

I originally purchased this fabric from Spoonflower to make some kitchen curtains.  Unfortunately, after I washed and the fabric, it shrank so much that I no longer had enough to make those curtains.

Doesn't the main design sorta look like a trilobite?

After debating for awhile, I figured the next best thing would be to make some large pillow covers to get good use out of it.

Mary had originally purchased a few few 24" x 24" pillows for Chris a few years ago when she realized he had bare couches.  I figured it would be smart to make the same size so I could just swap out cases rather than purchase new pillow forms.

Following the tutorial I cut four 25" x 25" squares since I was making two pillow covers.

Next up was the tricky zipper part which turned out to be not so tricky.  I really wasn't that hard to follow along.  Mine may not be the most amazingly straight seams, but they got the job done.

I used a 22" zipper which worked great.

I stitched up the remaining sides, turned it right side out, and got them nice and ironed.

Then I stuffed the pillow forms in and voila!

Dwight seemed to think I was trying to take pictures of him.

Next up is figuring out what fabric to actually use for the kitchen curtains...